High Strung: The 25 All-Time Weirdest Guitarists

Let Guitar World introduce you to 25 of rock and roll's most eccentric ax slingers!

Ricky Wilson

Everyone associates B-52's with Fred Schneider's campy bark and the bewigged antics of Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson, but these perennial new wave faces wouldn't have gone far without the twangy licks of Cindy's guitarist brother, Ricky.

Heavily influenced by the disparate likes of Captain Beefheart and Joni Mitchell, Ricky (who allegedly learned guitar by playing along to TV commercials) used a variety of weird-ass tunings on his old Mosrite, dispensing with the D and G strings entirely.

At a time when Dire Straits and Van Halen ruled the rock roost, Ricky's thrift shop, surf-meets-spaghetti western sound was a total revelation.

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Didn't hear any guitar in that Dave Davies example. The solo from "You Really Got Me" would have been better. Yeah, I know, Jimmy Page was supposed to have played that but the Kinks claim it was Dave and Page just played rhythm guitar and it does sound a little crude and scatterbrained for Page to have played. Brilliant though.

This article is a bit misleading. It's not necessarily weird/innovative guitarists, but rather the 25 Weirdest "Dressed" Guitarists. This article is more about showmanship than musicianship. Ace Frehley is a weird guitarist? What's so weird about the pentatonic scale? And even so, WHERE IS ZAPPA???? He was not only an innovative guitarist/composer, but also a 'weird' performer. Hell, weird isn't the word for it.

These 'best of' lists are always a joke. Just for once I wish reading these best of lists wouldn't be an absolute waste of my life. Hell, I just need to stop reading them! If it wasn't for a few of the instructors on this site I wouldn't even bother visiting this website. Sheeesh.

Actually that's Jeremy Spencer playing the slide. Kirwan is the one with the Les Paul just playing chords while Green is playing lower register old west riff. I saw your comment before getting to this one and I assumed they would be showing the old video of them playing "Oh Well". Kirwan plays lead on that. Spencer plays maracas on that one.

If the polls there doing on the solos poll don't see this you ain't got much to worry about. Because they pretty much have heard of punk rock I imagine. Marc Bolan seemed down to earth. Now Rick Nelson from Cheap Trick he was an odd dresser. Ace was always stewed on stage. Young has the whole thing working for him. Another guitarist was that guy from BOC that took dumps and other perverted acts on stage. So see what I mean there could be a lot of personnel experiences of witnessing all of this from other bands. Pete Townshend broke guitars.

Odd that I've seen Blue Oyster Cult many, many times since 1975 and have never witnessed Buck Dharma, Eric Bloom or Alan Lanier take a crap on stage. Are you sure that this ain't just some urban legend? Those guys played some good stuff without having to resort to effed up stuff. Rick Nielson and Bun E. Carlos just dressed like nerds to offset Robin Zander and Tom Peterson's rock star look.

Syd's music may be unsettling to listen to for some because of the mental condition. Listen to some of the cover versions, robyn hitchcock, david bowie or vovoids come to mind to discover what a great songwriter he was.